Fun Parts

by Sam Lipsyte

Truly black tragicomedy can be found in these stories, which are not so much of born losers as of those fated not even to compete. A book as American as Apple Pie - a pie that's been flattened by Death on a Motorised Vehicle.

Extract

I wasn't quite obese. Those types were to be pitied, the ones we saw at the mall when my mother drove me over for new fat-boy pants. We'd circle the parking lot, the seams of my corduroys planed down or outright split, my hands cupped over the pressured bars of crotch flesh.